Jermaine Wilson English Essay 04/05/2007
How does Juliet’s Character and Language Change during the course of the play?
When we first see Juliet in the beginning of the play she seems to be very shy and timid. I can see this because of the way she talks “Madam I am here, what is your will”. She also seems very obedient to her parents and not much of an outgoing person. she also seems quit withdrawn when it comes to the subject of love and marriage I think this is because she is still a child and still thinks of boy as “icky”.
In Act III.scene ii Tybalt is killed by Romeo and Juliet is left reconciling her love for Romeo. Juliet then goes to the Nurse and has a conversation about the terrible situation, the death of her cousin Tybalt. In this conversation between her and the Nurse I noticed that she uses lots of contradictory language - called antitheses - which tell us that she is confused and filled with mixed emotions. For example, she calls Romeo a ‘Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!’ Both phrases are oxymorons, contradictions in terms. Although this might be nonsense on one level, because a tyrant cannot be beautiful or an angel also a devil, in another way this does make sense due to the state that she’s in. Juliet is using a religious image, ‘fiend angelical’. If she is religious, this might tell us more about why she reacts in such an appalled way to hearing Romeo is a murderer. Remember, at this point she doesn’t know that Romeo acted in revenge for Tybalt’s killing of Mercutio, who was his best friend. It is as though she is brainstorming to cover up her real feelings for what she’s thinking. But Juliet can’t help but feel a slight bit unhappy about the fact of her cousin Mercutio.
